‘The Importance of Being Earnest’ @ Stage West Theatre
Photos by Evan Michael Woods
—Jan Farrington
“I never change, except in my affections.”
“The good ended happily, and the bad unhappily. That is what Fiction means.”
“I'll bet you anything you like that half an hour after they have met, they will be calling each other sister. Women only do that when they have called each other a lot of other things first.”
Oh, sure, I’d love to have met playwright Oscar Wilde over a pint or a brandy—but only if there were other chatty people with me to buffer the conversation. I find his quick wit both wondrous and terrifying, and fear I don’t have the quips to keep up with him.
Still, it’s fun to sit back and watch.
Stage West’s The Importance of Being Earnest, directed by Ashley Puckett Gonzales, invites an A-list of North Texas actors to the Wilde party, transplants them into the brassy, greedy 1980s of Dynasty and other prime-time soaps—and lets the comic, knife-sharp lines fly across the stage like an upper-crust food fight.
This 1895 rom-com gets its digs in at high society—then and now—but its main aim is to make us laugh, and then tingle with the deliciousness of the wordplay. Is the script a bit long for today’s spoilt 90-minutes-and-out audiences? Yes, a bit. But who is brave enough to make a thousand tiny cuts in this classic comedy…just to save us a half-hour we’d probably waste at Starbucks?
Algy and Jack—more formally, Algernon Moncrieff (Lee George) and John Worthing (Micah JL Brooks)—are good friends who both lead secret double lives. Jack, a “worthy” young gent in the countryside with lots of obligations, gets away from it all by inventing a fake brother named Ernest who always needs to be bailed out of trouble. Likewise, Algy takes time off from pesky family demands by inventing an invalid friend, Bunbury, who constantly needs his help out in the country. Algy suspects that Jack, like him, is a confirmed “Bunbury-ist.”
Tightly wired Jack is in love with Algy’s cousin Gwendolen (Amber Marie Flores). Flirty, fun-loving Algy wants to locate the intriguing “little Cecily” (Cheyenne Haynes) mentioned on the inside of Jack’s cigarette case. (She’s the granddaughter of Jack’s adoptive father; Jack is her guardian.) Still following? The cast includes a butler or two (Sarah Comley Caldwell gamely plays both—one cheery, one grumpy); governess Miss Prism (hilarious Shannon McGrann), whose past holds a secret; romance-minded local vicar Rev. Chasuble (Shakespeare-voiced Steven Young); and Algy’s rich aunt Lady Bracknell (imperious Paul Taylor), a dragon feared by all (and Gwendolen’s mother to boot).
George and Haynes are delightful as Algy and Cecily (he finds out she lives on Jack’s country estate), whose bubbly personalities seem a perfect fit, if only Fate will smile back at them. Brooks and Flores, as suave-but-jittery Jack and strong-willed Gwendolen, are likewise a fine, funny pairing—almost muscular, in fact, in their arched-back, tango-move kissing style. And the third couple? Ah, it’s never too late for love.
The characters deliver their complex lines with speed and finesse, though (as Wilde meant it to be) the words whiz by us so quickly we’re breathless trying to keep up. The cast hung on to their British accents valiantly—though I do wonder (it’s annoying, I know) why high-pitched voices are still almost always the choice for both Cecily and Gwendolen in this girl-power age. (See Joan Greenwood as a rich-voiced Gwendolen in the 1952 British movie.)
No point in trying to give a play-by-play of Wilde’s ingenious plot, which ranges far and wide, and requires downing plenty of tea, passing a “marriage quiz” from Lady B, rooting through closets for a dusty old handbag, arranging a baptism, and researching the British Army’s list of generals.
Costume designer Sarah Mosher wows us with the ‘80s hats and shoulder pads (Lady Bracknell’s go out and up like the roofline of a Chineses pagoda). Cecily’s soft floral dress and blonde curls made me think of the young Meg Ryan, and Gwendolen is definitely dressed a la Alexis Carrington—though she’s nicer than that. Algy makes a show-stopping entrance in shades and gleaming Miami Vice white.
Bob Lavallee’s slightly cheesy (the ‘80s, remember?) but ingenious city/country set design transforms fluidly, and the dramatic lighting/sound effects at intense moments (from Hollie Price, Emilee Biles, et al.) are a treat. Don’t know who picked the pre-show and intermission pop tunes, but I saw plenty of middle-aged Material Girls (and Boys) singing along.
Party on, dudes.
WHEN: September 5-22, 2024
WHERE: 821 W. Vickery Blvd., Fort Worth
WEB: stagewest.org
